former director for ted cruz's 2016 campaign, rick tyler. donny deutscie deutsche, bobby . and the historical implications of donnie's bow tie, it's a polka dotted bow tie. >> it's kind of chinchilian. >> a lot of the nba players get drafted wearing bow ties. >> it's kind of a russell

westbrook thing. >> whatever you need to tell yourself, donnie. >> the celebration for bastille day marks one of the country's key moments of the french revolution, the storming of the bastille. but his mind is still on what's going on back in washington. senate republicans yesterday unveiled their latest version of the health care bill and already two republican senators are saying they are not on board. republicans cannot afford to lose another single vote. we'll get to that battle in a moment. but the report from mcclatchy that says investigators on the house and senate intel committees and justice department are looking into the trump campaign's digital operations, specifically whether the program overseen by jared kushner helped guide russia's voter targeting and fake news

attacks on hillary clinton in 2016. did the campaign point russian cyber operatives and bots to specific areas in specific states. for the report, mcclatchy spoke to a former pentagon official who just left the department of defense in january and that senior official said, quote, there appears to have been significant cooperation between russia's online propaganda machine and individuals in the united states who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation. last night rachel maddow spoke with that former senior pentagon official, michael carpenter, and he explained why russia may have needed people on u.s. soil. >> there was probably some degree of tailored messaging, in fact, down to the very precinct

level, targeting swing voters in certain midwestern states. in order to do that, the russian intelligence services, a, don't possess the internal capacity to able to do that on their own in a very sophisticated way but, b, it is their m.o. and i've seen this in a number of other countries to reach out and try to use political operatives in the united states in this case to help with both the message, both the content but also where to target it. >> we know that essentially russian intelligence cut-outs for the gru, the russian military intelligence service, like the guccifer component, reached out to the trump inner sirk bull also to an operative in florida to illicit and share information. it is inconceivable to me that

the russian apparatus would not have reached out to individuals in the u.s. in order to glean more was in on how to targ they information. it's just not credible for me to believe they ran this from the g.r.u. headquarters in washington. that doesn't make sense. >> that's michael carpenter. rick tyler, we want to make sure we underline there is no link made to this yet. >> right. >> we hear someone in the department a few months ago hear that strongably about it, it makes you want to dig deeper. >> we hear the ratchet continues to click. with every revelation it clicks and then there's a new set of talking points. this part of the ratchet has not clicked yet. if it's true, there's no way the russians would be able to target

to specific precincts with specific message counter that to within of michigan, if it's true they could have done it with outside help. now, it may not why, especially at the presidential level, is astoundi astounding. targeting people down to a block and finding out whab they like or dislike. it's always been a wonderment that the russians were so skillfully able to hone in on this. >> i coincidentally ran into a top clinton official who served on the campaign yesterday at union staegs and she said, you

know, it was about thyme a year ago when we started to raise flags to you all in the media. but she said about some of this targeting and the bots and specificity of it, she said, however, never in our wildest dreams did we think the trump officials could actually be directing them. but now that some of this is coming out like in the e-mails, they're just -- even the clinton people are shocked at how -- what these conversations have evolved and what the level of talks may have been. remember, we're not there yet, like rick says, but we know, we know that over twitter he had some contact and bragged about it with guccifer 2.0. like rick said, it's really

important not to prejudge this because the racket may not quick. there are disturbing signs there. >> every time in debate his candidate would go after trump, the bach with all kick in. we traced it back and it came from various german places. jared kushner, who got this incredible credit for being a digital whiz and making this happen, i grew up in that world. i spent 20 years in the ad basis and marg etting world. and here's a guy who spent ten years becoming a skion and orchestrating it. i remember going -- where'd that come from?

. >> phil: so you got to have the targeting in but also you if that's true you really do have a case that we want to say the senate intel committee and justice department are looking into it. and there are new questions about what jared kushner left off his security form. now the "new york times" reports kirshner has supplemented the list three times, adding more than 100 times. the timeline goes like this -- on january 18th, two days before the inauguration, kushner filed the form but an assistant

accidentally hit send too quickly and reports say he immediately told the fbi he would amend it. on april 6th, according to yahoo! the russian morning e-mails are due on june 21st. white house advisers tell the "new york times" kushner met with trump to discuss the issue ashd the time he updated -- it's unclear what kushner told his father-in-law given that wednesday he said he found out the meeting, quote, only two tore three days ago. a new report claims the president's outside legal team was informed about the ims

really talking, the chief lawyer in the. they were both informed about the e-mails in the third week of june after they were discovered by lawyers for kushner. kasowitz and garten have not responded. >> i don't know the assistant's name but maybe the new rosemary woods of this century. whenever you have to say it's a clerical person, you're in a treacherous place. one of the great questions i think going forward is clearly bob mueller has plenty to do so that's good, he's not going to be bored, as he investigates, but to what extent will a trump

base that voted for this man largely because of their discomfort with, anxiety about globalization, to what extent are they are going to react if it in fact turns out that we had a globalized election, that russia was involved, which we now pretty much know. but if there was collusion, are we in a post-fact world so far past that sign that a timeline like that, like you just laid out, actual evidence, the e-mails that donald jr. put out, these are now pieces of data. this is what happened. what will the 85% of republicans who support president trump say? what will it take for them to say you know what, i think if there's this much smoke, there was actually fire.

>> his base -- his polls have showed they've hung in with him. not just his base but republicans in general. >> we're in a football stadium and the fans are divided and there's a call and it says replay, right, from the flag on the play, replay. and they call the play. half the fans will say that was the wrong call and half will say that was the right call based on what they both watched. it's almost as if the truth doesn't matter. it's does it help my team or not help my team. >> even if the right call was on the jumbotron. >> it was clearly out of bounds. nope, wrong call. >> it gets to the one most outstanding success of the trump presidency and that's his successful and sustained assault on the news media. i mean that, has taken hold. and there are a huge percentage of americans choose to the to believe these stories, choose

not to believe that russia may have participated in our election, which is in effect an act of war, cyber war against the united states on behalf of donald trump. knowingly or unknowingly on t m trum. >> but i was going to take it one step further. they're not even engaged in this story. i still think there was a huge leap of faith and the attitude is if he can bring my job back to the coal mine or can help with health care, i'm going to do it. until they realize that because of this that's going to happen, that's when they lose him. the end result when he becomes impotent, i think that's when he starts to lose them. >> when it comes to the news media, you're right al ogt, what

we know about american consumption of news is that it is very bifurcated. people who watch msnbc and cnn, they have much higher numbers in terms of trust of the news media that you watch. i think as this information starts to come out, even on outlets like fox, there are people speaking out like charles kra krauthammer saying, look, we have been lied to for six months. as well as when the information is coming out on the health care bill that is going to affect so many americans. >>. >> trump voters no he lies. what trump leaves on the table is just what you said, even

though he can communicate directly with the voters, which is extraordinary and the "new york times" and fox and all the rest of it. >> there are 300 million people in this country. if you look at the numbers, it's still a kwi etly. >> if you talk it an ardent trump supporters and they believe a lot of them, they broadly believe that the story was the winch esh that it's not worth pursuing. >> actually, the democrats are

worried they can't control everyone in their caucus. they can't control people who are rshfully to feel, the truth will come out. when you talk to even republicans who are very skeptical of what's going on right now off the record, they say they just want to wait for bob mueller because we in there country -- remember, russia started doing this digging before trump was anywhere on the scene. the ultima goal is to pit ut against each other. to undermine faith if our system and that's what's going to happen in. >> putin has created chaos within the american political system. there's an intersection here, the diminishment of plaef in the news mediand a the president's behavior, his inability to stick

to the trust or tell the truth. when he gets driven from place to place where ordinary work people are concerned about am i going to lose my health care? what's mrks, the economy is really soaring, people don't believe that. and, john, i assume you mied find the same thing when you do get out of the back of the car. >> it's funny, when i ask for my 7 iron and we exchange a few words, you're absolutely right. the reason -- again, the reason trump was elected was distrust in government as it exists and anxiety about a political that

had a about and a household income that is stagnant or moving just a tiny, tiny bit. that's why he's there. now, his popularity, what we all about may be by the other political stuff. but that's the fundamental covenant. if he doesn't deliver, i do think ultimately his political support begins to erode somewhat. the laws of political gravity have not been entirely repealed but the elections poll six like both inside the party and on the democrat being side is going to be vital. my final point here is is the politics of this are incredibly important, preechlt ultimately

if that were ever on the table, is a political process. but there is the rule of law and the rule of law, which is a fundamental premise of the country should not be subject to popular passions. >> and we'll talk about health care coming up next, hanging by a threat for republicans. we'll hear from "bungled collusion is still collusion." and two return snons announce and we'll speak live with democratic whip dick durbin. you're watching "morning joe," we'll be right back online u.s. equity trades...

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. welcome back to "morning joe." after reworking their health care legislation, senate

republicans have revealed a new bill that already appears to be in jeopardy. president trump treating "republicans senators are working hard to get their failed health care bill approved. i will be at my desk, pen in hand. can mitch o'connell get health care approved? and he went on after all these years suffering through obamacare. republicans senators must come through as promised. senators rand paul and susan colli collins, both republicans, already said they will not support the bill, leaving republicans with not a vote to spare. >> reporter: do you think the new verse is better? >> no, it's worse. this continues to fund the majority. subsidies and keep the majority. regulations so i think we're keeping obamacare as much as

anything and that's not our promise. >> it does not make sense to do a major rewrite of a vital entitlement program without any heari hearings of consideration of the implications. that is the reason i cannot support the bill. >> the modified bill provided 45 billion to fight the opioid epidemic, $70 billion to stabilize the cost of health care, extension of three obamacare taxes, allows insurers to sell new low cost, strip-ed down policies that are not obamacare compliant. mcconnell is expected to meet with holdouts to try to convince them not to walk away from their promise to repeal obamacare.

>> reporter: what's your bet on whether mitch mcconnell can pull this off? >> he's good. he pulled more than one rabbit out of the half. i keep asking if he feels the fuzzy ears of another one there. we need to do this and move on to tax care and other things. >> the bill reflects the senators throughout the spectrum. >> heidi, we're at 50 right now. it's a 50/50 split. not one more vote to spare. at 50/50, mook pence comes over and closes the deal for them. you heard the skepticism. the list goes on of people who are on the fence and based on their comments yesterday probably swinging toward no. >> and here's the problem, willie, in a matter of days we'll go through this familiar dance of getting the cbo report which will show that the

headline remains the same, millions of people lose health care. i just don't know how when you have so many states where republicans are serving that expanded medicaid that are going to lose that that the end product is going to be any different in terms of millions losing the and the essential position of those members. i was on the hill the other day and i spoke with a republican who is one of their top targets here that they're worried about and he said, look, if we can't get this done in the next week, we are going to have to work with democrats to shore up those individual markets. so that may be a breakthrough, willie. i've been covering this congress for several years and it is malpractice on the american people the way our government is working. they are doing things in secret. let's be clear, democrats didn't work with republicans either on obamacare and here's what you get. you get something that doesn't work long term.

and the same thing that is happening now, done in secret, one party. this is not the way our government is supposed to be functioning. >> but the obamacare debate went and researcher lahni chen. even within your own caucus, you have disparate parties who want disparate things. >> you have some members voting for the bill precisely because of the changes to medicaid.

the question is are there enough deals that can be made between now and when the bill will go to its procedural stage next week. if it will move on the bill, senators can individualize their pet projects and have a debate about this or that provision but the key question is whether they've got the votes to proceed to the bill in the first place. >> lanhi, you played a critical role for governor romney's political campaign. he imcomplemented, outlined and divided heck legislation. it's quite similar to what we call obamacare. that name as obsessed for years,

obamacare. with the existing state of crisis in health care in america, wouldn't it have been simpler just to take obamacare, the parts that clearly have trouble functioning and just fix them instead of doing what they're doing now? >> you know, i think the challenge is that for the last seven years, republicans at all levels of government have been talking about the repeal and replacement of obamacare opinion and there's reasons for some to make the argument because there are fundamentals are. so there isn't a strong incentive so long as the so you have this interesting

political -- democrats are going to have to move forward for a vote using only health care. >> it was a multi-year process, very different than what we're seeing now. >> do you think of the adversity where the money, instead of being a federalized government system -- i think one of the things that the republicans and democrats will disagree on is that the republican, by the rarj, dend punt a federal system and it looks like their grand cassidy would sell the. >> yeah. i think this is a really interesting -- i might call it a fall back pro toes al depending on what happened next week. it was floused to senators collins and cass dea few months ago and you would take the

number whether they want to fin the blake regulations and ruls or do they want to go to a different direction. state innovation has always been promised on states doing what they think is best for their citizens. is he the idea of a federalist solution in health care i think is very attractive but we're not going to be able to get there until we get past this debate first. >> i want to pick up a point that you made on plit u so much of this unfortunately is brants if you rook at every one of trump's swede, this is what i want for heck, this is what i want for the people of this country.

it's killed obamacare. there's a little branding. >> if you take blake away, maybe not prm that is if dh. >> it's experiences but my point would be we need to share that and make it better as opposed to destroy it. >> i think done be maybe that can be the democratic concession to republicans is to the at least give it a new name, just make changes to it, call it something different. >> please don't encourage donnie by saying he made a good point.

handicap this vote for us. you have nothing to spare here. what's going to happen? >> i think mitch mcconnell will have the votes and a motion to proceed and as an extense of that i think it going to be a nail biter. now trump is blame. we'll hear hour he makes that connection ahead on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ whoooo.

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my son is a wonderful young man. he took a meeting with a russian lawyer, not a government lawyer but a russian lawyer. it was a short meeting. i think from a practical stand point most people would have taken that meeting. it's called opposition research or even research into your opponent. i've only been in politics for two years but i've had many people call up, oh, gee, we have information on this factor or

this person or frankly hillary. that's very standard in politics. politics is not the nicest business in the world but it's very standard where you have information and you take the information. honestly i think the press made a very big deal over something really a lot of people would do. the lawyer that went to the meeting, she was in the halls of congress also. somebody said that here visa or p passport to come into the country was approved by attorney general lynch. maybe not nthat's not true but t heard that. >> and that's donald trump blaming loretta lynch. "bungled collusion is still collusion."

the evidence has now shown this is not hear say, unthat the intermediary brought no such good. i leave it to the lawyers to adjudicate the legalities but you don't need a lawyer to see that the trump defense, it is po rn something from a important entity specifically icy. >> phil: so trump is saying one thing that's true and mixing it with something that's not true. is it true that every day people

call in and have room for tlt norm. the idea someone you have professional on research that vets things for you and that's correct. there would be no way. i'm amazed that agreeing with trump that this is routine. it's not routine. you would never take a call or a meeting at that level. and paul manafort know better and he may have realized what kind of meeting he was in, which is why he wasn't paying attention to it. and major celebrities would call. >> that a woman who is and ran

in 2008 and ran in 2016, and this is not the first that's happened. they tried to reach the j.f.k. campaign and tried to reach the bush campaign and they sent it to the i. we now know there was a russian campaign, but that they knew about it, they were prying to gets the information and that they cam tall add -- what did we

see at the end of the campaign? we saw mike flynn trying to possibly reward them by having this tfrgssfrochl. we don't have the details of sfrarchlts. >> 4 person should be nowhere near national security. >> done trump searier about hillary clinton that's going to knock your socks off. >> it's worse that be -- from what that meeting was set to fet sfrchl sflrchl and it was said

was a fchlks opinion if fchb that the campaign manager and sard kerschner if it's a blow-off meeting? >> i think you're right. i think the tone of the e-mails suggest that he was expecting -- trump jr. was expecting to learn something that would be useful. this is not one that we have to speculate. it was in black and white, released because the our times" was on the case. the free press i think were how sorrier he maintained his

consistency in the war against the media. in an attempt to diminish the impact of the lawyer, the raugs lawyer got her visa. >> but you can't the attorney general generally. >> stel puerto ricans

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while traveling paris this week, the president hold an extend

extend -- extension with vladimir putin. another answer from him. the president went on in other transcripts saying, quote, i'm not saying it wasn't russia, what i'm saying is we have to protect ourselves no matter who it is. you know, china is very good at this. i hate to say it. north korea is very good at this. look what they did to sony studios. they were the ones that did the whole deal to sony. a reporter asked, have you told him that? to which the president responded, i told him, look, we can't -- we can't have -- now, he said absolutely not twice. what do you do, get into a fistfight with somebody, okay?

he pushed putin hard for the first 40 minutes or whatever the number is now and that they got putin to say, no, i didn't do this and what else do you want me to do effectively is now the response from the president? >> we will never know the full truth why because breaking with standard protocol from the past we didn't have anybody in there other than him and rex tillerson. but some of the reports we've gotten suggest that he tried to put it in very preif you think the -- pe-- did you do this, no that's one version, the other version is what the president is giving us. at this point i don't know which one we can trust. the one thing i do know even if that happened there was no discussion of consequences, no saying, look, if you continue to do this, these are going to be the consequences. so there's still something there as to why this president does not want to crack down on russia, does not want to do anything to upset vladimir putin. >> you know, look at that

statement from the president to the press and, again, even when he's saying, yes, russia probably did something, it's always qualified. it's always, yeah, okay, i guess they did something, but china does it too. north korea does it too. you can't just cleanly say that russia as his intel agencies have told him interfered in the 2016 election. >> you didn't misread that. those are actually the words of the president -- >> i know that's why i stumbled. >> no, he never answers the question directly. he wants to leave room. so he clouds it all up, well, could have been china, remember the north koreans, sony, look over here, look over here instead of putting it to rest. but i think it's right in the meeting. we have to believe either putin or trump on the outcome of the meeting, all right? so we don't have a good choice there. i do believe he asked it, but i think it was this big check off, okay, i asked it and let's move on. and he thought that i asked it, i confronted him, we can put this behind us and let's get onto other things and have a good relationship with russia, which i don't think is possible because they're clearly trying to undermine us.

>> you buried the lead. are we going to get the other story of what he discovered? >> it was almost a 90 minute discussion, he talked about syria, russia, china and trade. >> anything about the wall? >> he was asked about the wall. >> transparency -- can i tease this for viewers at home? >> yeah, okay. >> this is not a joke, what willie's about and maybe have your children step away from the tv -- >> no, no. >> more than anything else, listen. >> i'm not going to read the whole thing but here's the backdrop, he said the wall physically needs transparency, can't be a steel wall. here's why, a quote from the president. i'll give you an example, as horrible as it sounds when they throw the large sacks of drugs over and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don't see them, they hit you in the head with 60 pounds of stuff, it's over. as crazy as that sounds, you need transparency through that wall. so you need the physical transparency, maybe holes in the metal or something so when those 60-pound sacks of drugs come over the wall and hit unwitting

bypassers -- >> willie, if you check it out, it's a very busy area, hospitals in that area are filled with people with concussion syndrome having been hit with 60-pound bags -- >> of course people are hanging around selling hot dogs. >> and sacks of drugs flying over the wall. still ahead, going live to paris, the president just finishing up watching bastille day parade there. we have new reporting straight ahead.

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welcome back to "morning joe." it is friday july 14th. joe and mika are off. we have mike barnicle, danny and heidi with us also along pulitzer prize winning historian john meacham joining the conversation. and capitol hill reporter kasie hunt. in just a moment we'll go live to paris for new reporting from our white house team. we begin though with new questions this morning about what jared kushner left off his security clearance form, particularly following the revelation of that meeting with the russian attorney. now the "new york times" reports cushion ner has supplemented the list of foreign contacts three times, adding more than 100 names. based off the reporting of the

"new york times" and yahoo news, the timeline goes like this, january 18, two days before the inauguration, kushner filed the form but an assistant accidentally hit send too quickly. reports say he immediately told the fbi he would amend it. but on april 6th, the "new york times" reported he had not listed any foreign contacts. on may 11th kushner filed his revised form which the fbi interviewed him about in mid may. according to yahoo the russian meeting e-mails were discovered in june and kushner filed a revised form on june 21st, and the fbi interviewed kushner again on june 23rd. white house advisors tell "new york times," kushner met with trump to discuss the issue around the time he updated his federal disclosure form to include the attorney's name on a list of foreign contacts. it's unclear what kushner reportedly told his father-in-law given that president trump said on wednesday he found out about the meeting only two or three days

ago. kasie, let me go to you. this seems to be a problem with kushner, remembering three meetings he forgot to put on his disclosure forms. there's something about russia here. >> i think, look, every time something like this happens the stakes get higher for jared kushner as these investigations over at the capitol keep proceeding. and of course as bob mueller continues his probe here. they still haven't -- you know, there's been a lot of back and forth over wh jared kushner's going to come up and talk to senate intelligence investigators. there have been a couple new lawyers hired, things along those lines. and i think the questions and pressure on him are going to keep mounting. i talked to richard blumenthal yesterday who called on kushner to resign completely from government. there's obviously been a lot of pressure around the idea of revoking his security clearance, it sounds like. you know, that's not something

the president can give security clearance to whomever he wants to. so i don't think there's indication that's going to go very far, but i think those bells are going to get louder. >> gene robinson writes in "the washington post" today, ivanka and jared begin the plunge from grace. jared kushner and ivanka trump have tried their best to soar gracefully above the raging dumpster fire that is the trump administration. unhappily for the handsome couple gravity makes no allowances for charm. kushner is arguably the individual with the most to lose from the revelation that the campaign did after all at least attempt to collude with the russian government to boost trump's chances of winning the election. ivanka trump's name has not surfaced in the russia affair, but she like her husband is serving as a presidential advisor. jared and ivanka were expected to at least temper the hard right policy positions being pushed by other presidential advisors. if this indeed is what they are trying to do, they've had a negligible impact to date

writing in "time" henry kissinger wished well, quote, in his daunting role flying close to the sun, unquote. jared and ivanka have first class educations, gene writes, they know how the icarus story ends. gene, it's filled with more than just irony that jared kushner is now actually the pivot point of this probe thus far. >> there is something of a greek myth in all this, isn't there? i mean, the background jared and ivanka, son and daughter of famous successful men. jared son of a real estate developer who went to federal prison for his transgressions. both this new generation sort of in a sense being the socially acceptable generation, redeeming their fathers in a way, yet here

they are in the middle of this mess. and jared kushner especially, i mean, he is -- recall that he forgot or did not list that meeting with the head of a mobbed up russian bank that's under u.s. sanctions. he has been trying to secure in various corners of the world -- or his company has been trying to secure huge loans to keep the real estate empire afloat. it's as if it's all perhaps beginning to crash in on him and on this couple that is so -- so graceful, so polite. so magazine cover friendly. it's quite something. and it's just an interesting and fascinating sort of side plot to

this unfolding story. >> all right. we've got some new reporting i want to listen to right now from nbc news. nbc has learned there was someone else in that controversial meeting between donald trump jr., senior advisor jared kushner, former trump campaign chairman paul manafort and russian lawyer. also was another person with alleged ties to moscow, a russian american lobbyist, former soviet counterintelligence officer, suspected by some u.s. officials of having ongoing ties to russian intelligence. this is something he denies. nbc news not yet naming that lobbyist who denies any current ties to russia spy agencies. his presence likely to be of great interest of course to investigators. natalia veselnitskaya said she was with someone else.

heidi, donald trump jr. now has been talking about the story for nearly a week going into great detail about what happened, providing the e-mails, doing a long interview with sean hannity at the end of which he said, quote, this is everything. sean hannity gave him the opportunity, says is there anything else you need to say about this. let's listen to exactly what don trump jr. said a couple nights ago. >> i'm more than happy to be transparent about it and i'm more than happy to cooperate with everyone. >> so as far as you know as far as this incident's concerned this is all of it? >> this is everything. this is everything. >> did you ever meet with any other person from russia that you oknow? >> i don't know -- not in the context of actual formalized meeting or anything like that because, why would i? >> no mention, heidi, in all of the comments we've seen about any other russian or any other person in the meeting aside from kushner, manafort and veselnitskaya. >> we knew before this potential

new reporting coming out that don junior was potentially trying to mislead us because in that hannity interview he said there was nothing else, no other phone calls even in the e-mail itself said let's set up this phone call, what time, okay, we'll talk. and then later there was an e-mail saying thanks for the information. so it was highly suggestive that even before this new information came out he was continuing to mislead us. this new reporting coming out kind of confirms everybody's suspicion, if true, that this woman was a facilitator even though she herself wasn't an intelligence expert or key person who could be helping the trump officials. she was a facilitator. >> okay. we're going to talk more about this but let's go right to the source here, nbc news chief white house correspondent hallie jackson now with us. again, just in, nbc has learned there was someone else in the meeting between donald trump jr., senior advisor jared kushner, former trump campaign

manager paul manafort and also a russian lawyer. also in trump tower another person with alleged ties to moscow. hallie, what more can you tell us? >> reporter: here's what i can tell you. nbc news is not naming this man, but we have learned that some u.s. officials suspect him of having ties to russian intelligence. that is something that he denies. this is the latest twist in a story that has dogged the president in paris. he's on his way back home to bedminister, new york, now where he'll spend the weekend after being forced to confront the controversy here in france. this morning a major revelation about that meeting between donald trump jr. and a russian lawyer during the campaign aimed at getting dirt on hillary clinton. now, nbc news has learned more about who else was in that room, a russian-american lobbyist, a former soviet counterintelligence officer suspected by some u.s. officials of having ongoing ties to

russian intelligence. nbc news is not naming that lobbyist who denies any current ties to russian spy agencies. his presence likely to be of interest to investigators. the lawyer, natali natalia veselnitskaya says she traveled with someone but refusing to name him. the president before leaving for paris. >> my son is a wonderful young man. he took a meeting with a russian lawyer. not a government lawyer, but a russian lawyer. >> reporter: but trump junior accepted the meeting last june with someone explicitly identified as a russian attorney. >> i think from a practical standpoint most people would have taken that meeting. it's called opposition research. but nothing happened from the meeting. zero happened from the meeting. and honestly i think the press made a very big deal over something that really a lot of people would do. >> reporter: the president argues it's politics as usual. and while opposition research

is, what's not is when it comes from someone claiming to represent a foreign government and an adversary at that. now, in new excerpts released from a conversation with reporters on air force one, the president calls his son a good boy and a good kid. trump junior, who's 39, is ten days younger than the french president who stood alongside president trump in a paris news conference seeming to stifle a smile as his counterpart was asked ability his past remarks after terror attacks in france. >> paris is so, so, so, so out of control. we don't want to end up like france. france is no longer france. >> reporter: now. >> i'm coming back, you better do a good job, please, otherwise you're going to make me look very bad. >> reporter: so let me get to that exclusive reporting of ours this morning, guys. nbc news we have reached out to all of the individuals, representatives for all the individuals involved initially

in that june th, 2016 meeting, so far no comment from them. if we get a comment, obviously we'll be updating that reporting with what if anything they knew about this person. and, again, just to underscore something that you heard in that piece, this is likely to raise some interest, perhaps some concern now from investigators looking into all this, guys. >> so, hallie, i know we're not naming this man, this other person who was in the room for this meeting that's been under so much scrutiny, but we do know that he was a former soviet intel officer. and although he may deny it, almost by definition he does have links to russian intelligence. you don't just separate yourself and divorce yourself completely from that community. >> reporter: right. and that's why you are hearing some of these u.s. officials that we've spoken to say exactly that, willie, that he is still suspected of having these ties. now, again, this person who we got to emphasize we're not naming right now is denying all of that, but this is a story that will obviously continue to unfold. there had been a question, as you know, of who else was in

that room. now we're getting some more clarity on that. it's another wrinkle. >> all right. hallie jackson in paris. we'll let you hop back on the plane and get home as you continue to report this story. rick tyler, this is jaw dropping. i'm sorry, i mean, the fact they've been out talking about this story as long as they have, they felt they had their strategy put out, donald trump jr. is going to release e-mails, he's going to do a big interview where he says, quote, this is everything, this is all about the meeting. and not once is it mentioned that there's another person in this room, let alone someone who's a former soviet intelligence officer. >> the ration has clicked again on this story. now it's locked in. now they're going to be asked who this person is. and as you say a former soviet intelligence officer by definition has contacts with current former intelligence officers which should be very concerning. and it is astonishing to me that if we were going to get this out, and by releasing the e-mails, right, because that's where all the details about this meeting were laid out in black and white where the president

couldn't say this is fake news anymore. the source is his son. and he's given a chance to say everything about this meeting and misses the fact that there was someone else in the meeting. now we're learning it. now we start all over again. >> willie, we've got -- i better do this calmly. we got to start getting outraged here. i got a pit in my stomach as i heard that. just sitting there and really visualizing what's going on there. these two kids -- it's interesting watching those images of jared kushner and i've talked often that he's been in his dad's business for ten years and that's what don junior's done, so it's no surprise these guys are doing these absurdly amateurish like frighteningly absurd things that any intelligent person with a moral compass wouldn't do, but we've got to start being outraged. jared kushner needs to lose his security clearance tomorrow. tomorrow. and bob mueller, he's got 30

intense intelligence attorneys on this. we've got to double and triple this because this is the scariest thing i've seen in my life in politics. really play this out. >> does the former soviet operative's name appear on jared kushner's form? or does he have to go back again and add him? >> there's some important reason why the lying is worth it. because there's so many people who are deceiving in this, so many characters, going back to flynn, to sessions not disclosing his meeting with kislyak. there's some important reason why they continue to not come forward with it all. and it's starting to upset republicans. if you heard trey gowdy the other day, he said enough is enough, spill it, tell us everyone you've met with. >> and gene robinson, don junior asked us to believe his account of not only who was there but what happened inside that meeting. we of course express skepticism right away that it's just his account of what happened. so not only did he not mention this fourth person who was in the room, this former soviet intelligence officer who was sitting in on the meeting, but

now it calls into complete question what actually happened in that room. he says it was a nothing meeting. kushner left after seven or eight minutes. paul manafort's on the phone, this whole narrative that's been created it was a worthless meeting and a courtesy call, how do you believe a second of that story? >> right. i mean, frankly, i never really believed that because donald trump jr. lied from the beginning about the meeting. when the "new york times" found out about it, oh, it was just about adoptions and then he told a second lie about it and finally put out the e-mails when they were about to be put out by the times. so his credibility on what happened inside the room was never great. now there is no credibility about what happened inside the room. i think we go back to square one. who was this person and what actually happened? i just can't accept for a moment this idea that it was, oh, it

was a nothing burger, nothing happened. we didn't actually get to collude with the russians even though we wanted to. i think now you have to something much more serious might have happened in that room. and bob mueller is the one to figure it out. >> john meacham, the history of past presidencies were replete with many family issues, sons, daughters, whatever, but this seems to be a bit different, this particular family issue in the trump presidency. and i have no idea as to the level of illegality or collusion that existed in that meeting, but the level of ignorance of how we operate as americans and as people in political life as americans is kind of astounding. >> well, the trump example both in terms of the family and of

the in-laws is unique in american history at this level of and ambient reality of the power of that circle. you know, yes, bobby kennedy was attorney general, and, yes, president kennedy joked that he thought bobby should get some legal experience by being attorney general before he went out to practice. but robert kennedy was a formidable figure. this is more like the bonnaparts, remember, napoleon put various brothers and cousins in different thrones. and it's taking a toll. two thoughts on this, one, there's another former soviet intelligence officer in this mix, his name is putin. that's important to remember. this guy started out at the kgb. second, about two weeks after the inauguration i had a conversation, private conversation with a former obama official, so take this for considering the source, and i

said what do you think about the russia question. and this person said i don't have any doubt that it's true. and i said, well, tell me how this happens. i mean surely they don't just call up and make an appointment at trump tower. well, turns out maybe they did. >> kasie hunt, we've heard time and again this week from donald trump jr. and from the white house the word transparency. we just heard it again from that clip with junior's interview with sean hannity a couple nights ago on being transparent. i'm the one who put my e-mails out. i'm showing you all my cards. excuse me. in fact, he showed his cards and put his e-mails out because the "new york times" said we have the cards and we're about to put them out. and now that's fallen apart completely too, this argument of transparency. when you don't lay out honestly and transparentally who even was in the room with you during that meeting let alone what was discussed in that meeting. >> reporter: yeah, willie, a couple points. look, the reality here is that you are right, we would not know that this meeting ever took

place, we wouldn't have any details on who was sitting in the room, nothing without reporters, newspapers digging into it and telling people that this is what happened. and now of course we have this fifth unnamed person in the room that nbc news is reporting. again, something that after the president and all those around him said, look, we are being transparent about this. we're talking about this. another clear piece of evidence that they're not. and meanwhile you have the president continuing to regularly attack the media, a strategy aimed squarely at his base voters many of whom it seems may believe that none of this is actually true or that these reports are simply trying to serve to attack the president. i think that's a very concerted strategy on the part of the white house. and i think it's one that makes some republicans nervous. you were talking about this a minute ago. i think there is rising concern about kind of the general attempt to discredit the

reporting that is out there on this, even among republicans on capitol hill. they may not be willing to say it publicly yet, but they certainly are saying it privately. >> all right, kasie hunt, gene robinson, jon meacham, thank you all. we have much, much more. stay with us on this nbc breaking news investigative unit that there was someone else, a fifth person in that controversial meeting between donald trump jr., senior advisor jared kushner, former trump campaign chairman paul manafort and a russian lawyer. also now we've learned in the june 9th meeting at trump tower of last year was another person with alleged ties to moscow. a russian-american lobbyist, a former soviet counterintelligence officer suspected by some u.s. officials of having ongoing ties to russian intelligence. that's something he denies. nbc news not naming that lobbyist who denies any current ties to russian spy agencies, as i said. his presence likely to be of great interest to investigators. we're going to talk much more about this coming up. the attorney there said to nbc

news she was accompanied by someone but declined to identify who that is. we're going to go live to the white house on this story next on "morning joe." is now a safe bet. because tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites - so you save up to 30% on the hotel you want. lock it in. tripadvisor.

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i'm more than happy to be transparent about it and more than happen tito cooperate with everyone. >> so as far as this incident is concerned this is all of it? >> this is everything. >> did you ever meet with any other person from russia that you know? >> i don't even know. i've probably met with other people from russia, not in the context of an actual formalized meeting or anything like that because, why would i? >> well, he did actually in the meeting there discussing donald trump jr. speaking to fox news on tuesday night, but this morning nbc news has learned there was someone else in that meeting between donald trump jr., senior advisor jared kushner, former trump campaign chairman paul manafort and a russian lawyer. the man is said to be a russian-american lobbyist, a former soviet counterintelligence officer suspected by some u.s. officials of having ongoing ties to russian intelligence.

that's something he denies. nbc news is not naming that lobbyist who denies any current ties to russian spy agencies. joining us now from washington, nbc news correspondent katy tur, and from the white house nbc national correspondent peter alexander. peter, let me go to you right away. any reaction yet from the white house on this story? >> reporter: yeah, you know, nothing yet from the white house. what's striking as this news broke just as the president and many of his advisors were boarding air force one in fact already taken off en route back here to washington. so it's likely on that plane right now they are getting some of this information. we have reached out we should note in advance of the reporting of this story not just to donald trump jr.'s team but to jared kushner's team and paul manafort's team all of whom provided no comment on this reporting. strikingly just yesterday the president said of his son that there was zero impropriety. he said within the last 48 hours that he's been open, honest, transparent, innocent i think was his word as well. but on this day and i'm just reminded of this, i'm kind of struck by you'll remember during the late debates between hillary clinton and president trump that

each of them at the end of one of those debates was asked to say something nice about the other. and what hillary clinton said about donald trump is, i respect his children. i think he said something to the effect of they're very able, they're devoted and that says a lot about donald. well, obviously right now his children, perhaps his son-in-law becoming liabilities right now. the voice is the chorus of frustration among democrats right now who are not just focused on donald trump jr. but on jared kushner himself because he's uniquely positioned in this situation as he's the only one who was part of the campaign, a part of the transition and now works side by side with the president. a lot of calls that his security clearance be revoked. we've spoken to security clearance experts about this. and in effect the president is the security clearance czar. it's entirely up to him whether someone is allowed to have their clearance, whether they keep their clearance. it was described to us if the president chose he could give clearance to a homeless person on the street. >> so, katy tur, i mean

obviously a lot of the focus on this story in this meeting has been on donald trump jr., but to peter's point, jared kushner was in that room. and the story from donald trump jr. is that kushner left after seven or eight minutes after he realized it wasn't what he thought it was going to be. that's just donald trump jr.'s account and increasingly now as we learn there was someone else, a fifth person in that meeting not previously disclosed by donald trump jr. or the white house that all these elements of the story, that kushner wasn't there, manafort -- wasn't there long, manafort was on his phone. could all be a cover story for actually what was happening in the room. >> reporter: we just don't know, frankly. and let's be honest this team of folks, this white house transition, the campaign was not very good as being transparent or forthcoming at the time. and they're still not very good at being transparent. but this raises a lot of other really important questions. and i wrote a number of them down, bear with me, i'm going to read them. here are some of the other questions, who else was there? who else popped into that meeting? did the president really not really know about this meeting

when he was a candidate at the time? and was this the last meeting? did russia or any intermediary never go back to don junior and say, hey, listen, we do have more information? you did at the very least express interest in it. and did don junior never go back to his friend, rob goldstone or emn and say what was that? if nothing really came of this meeting and they were looking forward to it, wouldn't he go back to his intermediary and say, hey, that wasn't anything, what else do you have? or what happened there? or is there more that we can find out? and why did nobody in that room go to the authorities after this? there is this argument, willie, that this team did not know what they were doing. but the reality is paul manafort knew what he was doing. he is a veteran of a number of campaigns. so maybe he didn't read that e-mail all the way through. give him that benefit of the doubt. but when he sat down in that meeting and he found out that this was a lawyer who was

peddling information on hillary clinton and then trying to get sanctions lifted, at the very least why didn't he go to authorities? why didn't he raise a red flag? why didn't he inform anybody in that campaign that this is not something you do? listen, there were no rules at this campaign at the time. very few people knew who was in charge, frankly. very few people knew how to take in information. there was no opposition research team, there was barely a communications team, there was very little campaign structure. ultimately donald trump made all the decisions. so if donald trump made all the decisions and he was so granular as to signing checks every day, is it plausible to believe that his son, his son-in-law and his campaign chairman who's trying to gain influence with him would not go to him and say, hey, listen, we've got this information about hillary clinton and it could help you. and at the time, willie, remember he was struggling. he was trying to make sure they could hang on to the nomination at the convention.

and then he was facing a very tough fight against hillary clinton who everybody believed was the front-runner. >> yeah, at that point they were still talking about a brokered convention. i will say again, i'm astounded that donald trump jr. thought this story was going to pass without anyone realizing there was more to the story than he was disclosing, or that the white house would then backup donald trump jr.'s story not thinking reporters were going to find out exactly who was in that room. >> that's to my earlier point about why is the lying worth it. if it's as bad as we think it is and they were actually meeting directly with people directly connected to putin and russian intelligence, that explains the lie. but katy identifies a very important point about what the president knew and how much more there still is to come out on that. because here's what we know from just looking at media reports around that time. the president was physically in trump tower. not only was he physically present that morning, afternoon right before the meeting he went

to a luncheon where paul manafort was. so he was there and he was interacting with the main person who was behind potentially that meeting. so there's got to be additional information out there, surveillance tapes, whatever. and here's what's going to happen after this report, those records requests that congressional committees have already wanted to make because chairmens burr and warner already said we want to request e-mails, financial information, that's going to be put on steroids because those e-mails are highly suggestive that that is not just one e-mail in isolation when it's mentioned that this is part of a russian campaign and don junior doesn't say what russian campaign. >> willie, the answer to your question is how do they think they would possibly get away. i got one of kellyanne's cards, and it's delusion. these people are diluted. the fact they would get away with this and this story was going to somehow move on. >> peter, logistically can you

give us a frame of reference? we'd love -- everybody would love, i think, to get these people on the record their responses, their reactions to this story. what was the initial reaction in the white house when you asked for that reaction? i understand air force one is in the air and everything like that, but i mean, come on, someone's got to react. >> reporter: well, let's be clear, nothing back at this reporting has come out. but in advance of our reporting and as part of the team that helped try to gather up on this, we'd reached out to all the parties associated with this and, you know, i mean, privately the gist is they can say how can we remember all these details from way back then? publicly right now there's no sort of formal comment coming from the individuals as they represent don junior, manafort and jared kushner. i should note a source with direct knowledge of these discussions tells me that in recent days there have been conversations between the outside legal counsels for the younger trump, don trump jr., the president's counsel as well as jared kushner's private

attorneys about as they describe it making sure that both they and their clients are in their words more disciplined about sort of following the traditional protocols of discussing this case, this russia matter, which in simple english is they realize that jared kushner shouldn't just be walking into the oval office and having casual conversations as has been reported with the president and saying, hey, i did take a meeting a little while ago, this isn't going to be a big deal but i want to make you aware. the bottom line is they are reinforcing, recognizing the stakes here that they have to wall off one another in a way so they don't allow this to grow any further than it already has. and obviously based on the latest reporting will continue to. >> you know, willie, one of the things that's got to be bedevilling a number of people involved in this story within the trump administration is if you talk to any veteran criminal prosecutor or any veteran homicide cop, they will tell you the hardest thing to remember is a lie. >> and the president of the united states spent the last two

days in france including in a joint press conference with the french president defending his son donald trump jr. in this story. and now with a new wrinkle we'll see what the white house has to say. peter alexander, katy tur, thank you both. ahead, we'll bring in nbc news intelligence and national security reporter ken delaney, the revelation there was a fifth person in the room, former soviet counterintelligence officer in that meeting june 2016 included donald trump jr., paul manafort, jared kushner and russian attorney natalia veselnistkaya. much more straight ahead. i realize that ah, that $100k is not exactly a fortune. well, a 103 yeah, 103. well, let me ask you guys. how long did it take you two to save that? a long time.

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we are following breaking news. nbc has learned there was another person in the room during that meeting between donald trump jr., senior advisor jared kushner, former trump campaign chairman paul manafort and a russian lawyer. joining us now author and nbc news contributor, anin, just to get you in on the story, obviously the details we have are that this fifth person in the june 2016 meeting was a former soviet counterintelligence officer. he says he has no ties to current russian intelligence, but obviously this was not disclosed by donald trump jr. he had many times to do that including in a long interview

with sean hannity the other night, and his version of events has been backed up by the white house and by the president himself. >> this is starting to be one of those clown cars where you just can't believe more and more people will come out of the clown car. but there really are many, many more keep coming out and more and more close to the kremlin and the fsb and all of these things. i just filled out personally this global entry renewal thing, i had this card for five years allows you to get in through customs quickly, and i had to fill out in the last five years what all the countries i've been to. pretty simple version. i'm not a high official like these folks. you can't fill out a form like that without the fear of god being in you that if you miss one trip to the cayman islands you're going to be kind of kicked out of the country. >> especially you. >> exactly. exactly. under this administration. i think the question is not just about these guys taking these meetings, but where is the patriotism of the american

right? your side of the aisle if it's something that the left can admire, it does patriotism well. it does defending the national integrity of america well. if you're worried about american sovereignty, this is your heroine moment. >> the problem seems to be the trump supporters don't believe the story. they flatly believe the media has contrived this. they believe donald trump when he says it's a witch hunt. >> why don't they? because very wisely in the playbook of authoritarian governments this administration started by first laying the groundwork for this by making us not believe in the truth. by turning the media into the enemy of the people, by sowing doubt about what can be believed, by gaslighting this entire country, which is

brilliant. they probably knew stuff like this was coming, right? and they fertilized the ground by making us kind of get in that position where we don't quite know what we believe or what black is black and white is white. >> if you look at the way trump has done business his entire life and their family has done business, it is we are detached from any rules, we play our own game with no repercussions whatsoever, so i think part of the net-net of this is the complete hubris and ignorance is we can get away with this, we've done this our whole lives and there's nothing here. >> you're right. and, i mean, we pay less attention than we ought to to the innate genius, perhaps evil genius of steve bannon. i mean, the concoction of this, the diminishment of the media, the extended replay of half-truths and outright lies by

the top of the administration, the targeting of the need for many americans to still feel this guy is on our side because we have been ostracized by the coastal elites and by the news media. it all feeds into one caldron of discontent that oddly enough buttresses this presidency. >> also another disturbance, i don't know if you noticed this but buried in some reporting it was either the times or the post was a snip-it about how part of the strategy now may be to go after individual tournl e journalists who are reporting on these stories to try and discredit them. >> yeah. >> look, every opportunity this white house has gotten to point out the rare times when the media has gotten it wrong and had to issue a correction, they've hammered that. they've banged that drum. so there's no other way to interpret this if this is what they're going to do other than

just an attempt to try and bully and intimidate the reporters who are hot on their trail on this story. >> anand, you're absolutely right about the strategy by the white house, obviously that's what they're doing, but to disbelieve the story of the russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, you also have to disbelieve intelligence agencies. it's not just undermining of the press, but it's the undermining of the fbi and cia who've all said time and time again of course russia had its hands on the scale. >> again, we have to analyze what it is they did not just the last few months but a couple years. discrediting the media, calling out nbc reporters at the back of the room and threatening them was a piece of it. when i talk about gaslighting, i'm talking about something that goes beyond attacking the media but attacking ordinary people's sense of what is true. right? >> and you're making the point, i think, that's all exploitable by foreign enemies. >> yes. >> when the american people are divided, we're not hanging

together, and we're actually defending meetings with enemy states, that's exploitable. >> and i think the analogy i keep thinking of which may be a weird one but i think it's true, a country is a marriage, right? and we have these sides that don't love each other but kind of agree to keep going. and when that marriage gets as vulnerable, this national marriage, as ours has been, so much hatred of each other, so much contempt for each other, not trusting the basic motives of people on the other side, a home wrecker feels that they have a great chance of pulling the union apart. and russia's our home wrecker. >> a great metaphor. >> and we are now at the stage where they have convinced a substantial percentage of americans, i think, it hasn't been polled but i would bet you it's a substantial percent taj of americans who actually as with the president of the united states believe russia, russia, led by vladimir putin, is our friend. incredible. >> anand, thank you, through these difficult times your hair

remains our rock. >> yes. >> thank you. >> it's necessary. it's a shield. >> it never wavers even in difficult times. >> anti-totalitarian blast. >> what's the product? kerakare wax. i wish i had a thing to hold up. >> coming up next, natalia veselnistkaya revealed to nbc news when she met with donald trump jr. she was accompanied by at least one other man. we will continue our discussion of this breaking news, did he in fact have ties to russian intelligence? "morning joe" coming back. whoooo.

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that's why at comcast we're continuing to make4/7. our services more reliable than ever. like technology that can update itself. an advanced fiber-network infrustructure. new, more reliable equipment for your home. and a new culture built around customer service. it all adds up to our most reliable network ever. one that keeps you connected to what matters most. in just a moment we'll be joined by nbc news intelligence and national security reporter ken delaney along with kristen welker. we'll get the reporting on exactly how many people were in the meeting with donald trump jr. as we cover our breaking news from nbc news that there was a fifth person in that meeting of trump tower of june 2016. but first, the trump white house has sought to rip out many obama-era policies, from

obamacare to financial regulations to environmental laws, but perhaps none more than the nuclear deal with iran which turns two years old today. joining us now one of the key architects of the deal, former energy architects of the delm, co-chai and ceo of the nuclear initiative, mr.ing is, welcome this morning. >> thank you. >> you we heard the criticism you unleashed iran. you gave them money. their program continues unabated. what do you think it stands two years later? >> first of all i walled say we released iran, it was to remove the existential threat of nuclear weapons. that's been done. we have a substantial time now before if they should keith. first of all, we have incredible in place transparency steps which are unique so we will know if they cheat f. they, do we have much, much more time now to respond. so that was the objective.

we all recognized then, recognize today, we are on the opposite side of iran on a lot of issues in that region from yemen to lebanon and syria, human rights, missiles, the deal is about taking the existential threat off the table. >> so iran, i think it's universally held opinion, within like defense circles and intelligence circles. iran stirs the pot within the middle east if terms of terror and increased warfare, more than any other nation, perhaps the most powerful nation in the middle east. why should we then believe that inspectors, on site inspectors, can do the job? convince me why we should believe that. >> well, first of all, i believe if you talk to the people, the experts in this arena, let me call at this time technical arena of inspections, set set remarks i believe you would find overwhelming support for the idea that this is the gold

standard of verification. again, we have absolutely unique elements in there, in fact, many of us would aspire to see some of those elements more broadly applied, internationally. but jim clapper, who was the head of national intelligence in the obama administration. he said it very well, he said, look, no eb can credibly say there is absolutely 100% chance of finding any violation. but he said the bar has been raised incredibly high to find any such violation. the iae inspectors have tools if they are use tag now, that they have in no other context. we are pretty confident. >> mr. secretary, a lot is gold standard and transparency said vis-a-vis north korea. yet today, north korea is testing nuclear weapons, successfully testing icbm. why, and the basis for the

iranian agreement seem to be structured on the north korean agreement. why should we believe this agreement -- >> i believe i have to say i can't accept that premise. the north koreans never had the flexibility they have in iran. quite the country, they were highly restricted, you could only go to places that they wanted to show the inspectors. the iranian agreement is completely different. the inspectors the international inspectors can go anywhere in iran where there was suspicious activity, not just declared sites and as nowhere else, there is a fixed time frame for iran to provide that access or they are in violation of the agreement. >> is the team of inspectors, the team of international inspectors, are they based permanently in iran or do they arrive monthly, weekly and leave? how does it work? >> there is a major kadri in iran. no one inspector lives there all the time.

they're there 24/7. between inspectors and between, and with technology to watch all the sensitive places. so, frankly, the iaea, the international inspectors have taken on a very very big job, much bigger than what they had previously anywhere. but it's a big group of inspectors who are there. >> former energy secretary, appreciate you being with us this morning, thank you so much. >> thank you. still ahead, back to breaking news, we learned there was a fifth person in the room when donald trump junior and jared kushner and paul manafort met with the russian attorney. "morning joe" is coming right back. [vo] progress is seizing the moment. your summer moment awaits you now that the summer of audi sales event is here.

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♪ >> it was a meeting apparently about russian adoption and after about 20 minute, the meeting ended and that was the end of it. a big nothing burger. >> no information was received that was meaningful for helpful and no action was taken. >> i would fall in the nothing burger category. >> the new york sometimes story is a condiment on this nothing burger. >> when i go back to texas, nobody asks about russia. >> not a single question came on russia. >> from the team you saw dr. zivago until the moment you drank vodka with a guy named boris, you list every single one of those. >> things are going a million miles an hour, you know how everything is on a campaign. >> this is all of it? >> there is everything. >> i think it's important we get to the bottom of all of this. >> this is to help all the

people at home, what's the conclusion? collusion? no, we don't see that, i see illusion and delusion. >> nothing happened from the meeting, honestly, i think the press made a very big deal over something that really a lot of people would do. ? well, this morning, nbc news has learned there was a fifth person in that meeting between donald trump jr., former trump campaign chairman paul manafort and a russian lawyer. he is said to be a russian military lobbyist, where he served as a counter intelligence officer, he is suspected as having ongoing ties to russian intelligence, which he denies. for now nbc news is not naming that lobbyist. also in that controversial meeting with the russian lawyer whoing a only inned to nbc news she was accompanied by at least one other man, the presence at the meeting of a russian american was suspected intelligence ties will be of great interest to special

counsel bob mueller and the senate panel investigating that russian interference campaign. representatives for both kushner and manafort have declined to comment. just now the attorney retained by donald trump jr. confirms he has spoken to the individual described in our nbc report and quote, it's very simple, he says, the person was described as a friend of ayman agalorav and he says he's talked with that individual, quote, he is a u.s. citizen. he told me specifically he was not working for the russian government and, in fact, laughed when i asked him many that question. confirmation for security or otherwise the names were reviewed. he says donald trump jr. knew nothing about the man's background at the time of the meeting. when asked whether he had concerns, he responded, i have absolutely no concerns about what was said in that meeting. welcome back to "morning joe." it's a busy friday, july the

14th. we have mike barnacle and republican campaign strategist and msnbc political contributor, donny deutsche and contributor at usa today, joining us from washington nbc news intelligence and national security reporter ken delaney. ken, let me start with you. walk us through this reporting step by step. with we now have our first reaction from the white house, but from donald trump jr.'s camp there. >> reporter: that's right, willie. i think this adds another layer of intrigue to this mysterious meeting. there the a real disconnect between the promise in the e-mail from goldstone about what he and his father said they had on hillary clinton. it seemed very significant. then what we are learning about this meeting an what was said in the meeting. now, this russian-american lobbyist who accompanied the russian lawyer to the meeting, it's not clear what the impact of that is.

it will certainly be of interest to investigators. just because it wasn't disclosed. now, we are learning new information about it. but you know, according to lawyer in her comments to nbc news, they were talking about this set of sanctions under the magnitsky act which goes to this russian adoption issue. they didn't really have significant derogatory information about hillary clinton. so we still don't understand why this e-mail, very explicitly promised derogatory information and it doesn't team e seem to have been delivered. of course, what her former spell jens officials tells us, this looks like a dangle from russian intelligence. they wanted to see whether the trump team would respond favorably to this gesture, whether they would take a meeting, they brought senior officials to the meeting. >> and don jr. did a number. he did an interview with sean hannity the other night. he put out the e-mails. he is talking extensively.

at no time did he mention a fifth person in this room. what do you make out of our investigative unit of the initial response from don jr.'s camp, that this guy was just a friend of the russian attorneys, that they, you asked, are you russian governed? he said, no, you what do you make of the response this morning? >> reporter: well, you have to evaluate in the context of the responses all along, which have been, which have changed, you know, continually. don jr. started out talking about this as a discussion about russian adoption. then he acknowledged it was a little bit more than that. then e-mails and so, it's hard to evaluate whether that's actually the case, it's very possible that they just knew this man as a friend of a lawyer and weren't aware of his background. that's possible. i'm not ruling that out. other things are possible. that's exactly what bob mueller and the house and senate investigators will be asking. >> the fifth person in the room,

is he russian, american, american born in russia and now has american citizenship? let's flush this out. >> as we understand it, he was born in russia, served in the soviet military, in a job that involved counterintelligence, emigrated to the u.s., got udz u.s. citizenship as a dual national. works as a lobbyist. on various different sides of issues. has lobbied on issues near and dear to the heart of the russian government but has lobbied on the other side of things. >> how much do we know or how much did you find out about what donald trump jr. knew about this man? >> well, that's the mystery. we know what his lawyer says, that he knew very little. that's their accounts. we don't have anything that contradicts that. but again, many people are finding it hard to imagine donald trump jr., paul manafort, jerry kushner would take this meeting at a time when their candidate had secured the

president of the united states, for the republican nomination, with these people, these russian americans they knew very little about. >> does he live in the walk area, the fork area? do we know where he lives? >> i guess i'd have to be a little careful because of sourcing agreements about how i describe him further, mike. >> okay. >> ken, what business would he have being in that room? you know, he said the statement we got from donald trump jr.'s lawyers that he may have been a friend of the attorney who we already knew was in the room. can you confirm that a friend-hers? >> yeah, i think that's a fair statement. you know, we know that she was lobbying on the magnitsky act, which is the set of sanctions directed at russians or human rights violations. he believes that it is based on a fraud, that there are fundamental questions about the case that led congress to pass the mag nice ski act. she is trying to get anybody who will talk to her to take another look at this case.

this person may have been supporting her in that effort. >> rick, what would be typical vetting for a meeting like this? you said you wouldn't take the meeting in the first place, many people said they would call the fbi like the e-mail don jr. got. wouldn't you look into the background of this person, in fact, he was a former soviet intelligence officer? >> for don jr. to say i love it and he would want to hear dirt, i'd have to trust every single person in that room. let's say there were some information, i'd want to know that when we rule that out, we're not going tow preempted. it will be verified and vetted. what's interesting to me. i wonder if ken can competent on it. rob goldstone in the e-mails said he was not going to attend the meeting and he was going to make the introductions. so how did he introduce this fifth person. it's curious to me why he wouldn't also want to attend the meet something perhaps he knew this was a dang him. perhaps he knew he didn't want

to be in the room when the so-called dirt on hillary clinton wasn't forthcoming. >> ken. >> i wish i had better information about. that that sounds like an interesting theory. we just don't know. there are so many mysterious things why he wasn't there who set up the meeting, how he introduced these people. i just don't know the answers to these questions. >> let's go to paris, kristen welker is there. she has been traveling with the president as he makes his way back to the united states. breaking news coming as he's coming home by most accounts was a well received trip to paris. he attended bastille day, any reaction from your end to the white house to this story? >> reporter: no reaction from the white house yet. no reaction to the from the's outside count sell. as you point out, willie, president trump was aiming to shift the narrative away from the russia controversy with this trip to paris. we had these powerful optics today the bastille parade t.

crisis only deepening about the president's eldest son, which will undoubtedly be looked at by investigators back if d.c. this morning, another major development about that meeting between donald trump jr. and a kremlin-linked attorney. nbc news has learned exclusively there was someone else in the room. that person a russian-born american lobbyist and former soviet counter intelligence officer who is suspected by some u.s. officials of having ongoing ties to russian intelligence. nbc news is not naming the lobbyist who denies a relationship to russia spy agencies. the presence of a russian american with an intelligence background is likely to be of interest to american investigators. the revelation comes as the president wraps up a visit to paris, france, filled with pomp and panel entry, culminating in the bastille day this morning. the president hoping optics like these and a former relationship with french president manuel

macron will help turn the page on the russia controversy. at their joint press conference thursday, jump jr.'s meeting was front and center. >> my son is a wonderful young man. >> reporter: the president saying nothing came from the encounter, which he simply called opposition research. >> i understand the press made a big deal over something a lot of people would do. i had many people show up oh, gee, we have information on this factor or this person or frankly hillary. that's very standard in politics. politics is not the nicest business in the world. >> reporter: obtaining opposition research is common it's highly unusual for campaign officials meeting with people offering negative information about opponents. with the city of lights somewhat dimmed by the cloud of scrutiny the president found a silver lining. >> the friendship between our two nations and ourselves, i might add, is unbreakable. >> reporter: despite clashing over everything from trade to the environment, mr. trump expressing a willingness to

discuss the paris climate agreement, after he infuriated president ma'am ron by pulling out. >> i mean, something could happen with respect to the paris accord. we'll see what happens. >> reporter: another one of the president's off the cuff comments to france's first lady also making headlines. and i know you all have been talking about this, but it bears repeating, we are getting reaction now to this exclusive report from donald trump jr.'s attorney who says trump jr. simply thought he was taking a meeting with a friend of the intermediary who set the meeting up in the first place. the attorney saying he spoke with him directly, he is a u.s. citizen, he told me specifically he is not working for the russian deposit. willie, we also reached out to representatives, palm manafort and jared kushner also in that meeting so far no response.

willie, guys, back to you. >> kristen welker in paris, thank you, for preferenreferenc what drump dominican republic jr. said about it three days ago. >> i'm more than happy to tell everyone. >> as far as you know, this is all of snit. >> there is everything. this is everything. >> did you ever meet with any other person from russia that you know in. >> i don't even know, i probably met with other people from russia, not in the context of a actual formalized meeting or anything leak that, because, why would? i. >> sean hannity gave him every opportunity to put it all out there. he said this is everything, didn't mention this fifth person in the meeting. >> the level of ignorance and duplicity i find truly astounding. prior to sean hannity's interview, he receivers a call, traditionally, newspapers, you know this you call for comment from the subject of a big story like this. he says, so donald trump jr.

says can you give me a bit more time for a reply, hangs up the phone and dumps the e-mails out before the "time's" gets a chance to print. at that time one thing. he does it and continues to talk about the e-mails and the meeting knowing there was a fifth person there. and never getting to the fifth person. never getting that out. i mean, it's astounding. >> there is why the records requests are so critical at this point. because we know he was essentially lying there, there was another russian in the room. so those requests, which are probably coming in right now, from senate just dish areas, the intelligence committee will be really key to determining what will happen. because, here's the thing the russians may not have delivered in that meeting, and there is strong evidence that maybe they didn't. because the president never gave his speech. but they did ultimately deliver the golden goose, which is

wikileaks. that was something trump used over and over again on the campaign trail. make no mistake, it was a very important asset that he used. >> here's what they actually had. it was nothing, they already had the leverage over don trump jr. they have him saying i love it. they already owned him in one degree. one thing we have to say is a constant, lies or lies and omissions when it comes to russians, whether jeff sessions, jared kushner, don trump jr., that is the one constant, dishonesty, omission, lack of complete transparency whether it's a russian banker, ambassador, a russian lawyer. >> what is your sense, rick, of the republicans? how long can they put up with this. >> i think they may hopefully break on this one. because ultimately. >> you said that before, though. >> you will ruin the brand. all this gets attached to the republican party. people think of the republicans, imagine the republican party having the reputation of

coughing up for russians? >> if your brand, you know -- >> ken, it's a question we didn't think we have to ask, we have to ask it now s. there a possibility there was anyone else in that room. we are learning about a fifth person. but everything is on the table at this point? >> willie, i don't think we can rule it out. there was talk of a translator being in the room. i don't think this person, this lobbyist was a translator. >> was putin there? >> you talk about transparency, i was thinking, you know the white house knows the names of everyone who was in the meeting. don jr.'s lawyer knows the names. we're not naming this person. but they certainly could. why don't that? why don't they put it all out? it raises so 'questions. >> well, ken, they disclose only when confronted with the facts. donald trump jr. put out the e-mails only when he learned the new york time'ses with going public. he acknowledged there was

another person when nbc news reported there was another person in the room. when confronted with these facts, it seems to discount their significance. well, it was a nothing meeting. i didn't think to tell my dad, now they're saying the person was a friend, i didn't think it was significant. it becks the question, what else is out there? are they going to allow there to come out piece by piece by piece than actually being trance parent and putting things in front of us? >> that's certainly true t. ought thing is a careful reading of the e-mails shows there may have been, there is a strong suggestion there was a phone call between donald trump jr. while they were setting up this meeting. and the context would have been he, any formal person would have asked, what are you talking about in your previous e-mail? what kind of information do you have on hillary clinton? then you know we know the next day, donald trump gave a speech where he promised to give a

future speech ab you know potential dirt on hillary clinton. he never did that. it raises a question of was there a phone call and what was said in that phone call? >> willie, let's not lose perspective. this is one meeting, we have 20 years of relationships between the trumps tan russian, we have a special prosecutor on this case, i have a feeling there will be mr., many, forget this one meeting, this will be a little pea on an entire stack of what's coming. >> nbc news intelligence national security reporter ken delaney, we will continue to follow this breaking story. we will go leave to the white house, what all this says about the legal team surrounding the president, his staff and associates. the walk post reporting on the tensions the lawyers are facing with a client who often takes his own counsel. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back with our breaking news. ooking sites - so you save up to 30% on the hotel you want.

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>> this morning an attorney for

dominican republic jr. confirms to nbc news he has spoken with a fifth person in that june 9th meeting. he says he has quote absolutely no concerns of what was said in that meeting. this adds perspective to a new report that president trump's liam team is facing an increasingly difficult task within it comes to managing its number one client. the post reports the president refuses to discipline himself in disregard to lawyers' instructions, after one meeting, he sent a tweet about that very tweet before they arrive back at their office. they say they worry about the risk the president places upon himself when he engages without a lawyer in talks with those currently under scrutiny, including senior adviser jared kushner or his son donald jr. heidi, i don't think this comes as much of a surprise to anyone, donald trump freelances on his

own every he's undercut himself. he's tweeted against his own interest many times within it comes to the russian investigation, he written and said things no attorney would advise you to do or so when it's swirling around you. >> which we can pontificate which will be the person to reign him in. one of the things that sticks out when he gave into the russians and potentially gave up confidential information about israel as a source. who among us thought they hasn't briefed him know rowly before that meeting, yet can you lead him to water, but at the end of the day, can you fought control this president. >> think about how dysfunction am right now, the white house must be. few are the president and your most trusted advisers, jared kushner and your son and you now have to be legally be careful of how you talk to them, all of a sudden this changes the entire personal dynamic, if it doesn't

change, what does he offer? try picking these people managing this country at this point. >> rick, this has been the argument with donald trump, if you surround him with good people, h.r. mcmaster, jim mattis the list goes on and on, they can contain the damage, he's always going to speak for himself, he's always going to freelance, he's always going to be his own man. >> that wasn't my own argument. >> it's out there. >> you go back to the primary, i hate to say i told you so, this is what i said it would be like the guy has no underlying governing professor. he doesn't go back to a set of presence pms to base his decisions on, it's populism, the polls horks how is my base going to react. he doesn't have a deep understanding of domestic policy, foreign policy, this is not his gig. >> willie, you just read the quotes we got from the attorney involved on behalf of donald trump jr. and he has got to be

wondering as we are wondering, did his client tell him the whole story? because there is an apparent reluctance here, as heidi alluded to several times this morning, of real reluctance to get the whole story out. there is always the drip treatment that some little nugget becomes bigger and bicker. >> the argument in that statement is that this fifth person was merely a friend of the russian attorney, we already knew about. he was in the room that day. meanwhile the personal attorney for president trump, this morning, intending to apologize after threatening a stranger in a series of profanity-laced e-mails. an foreign attorney sent an

e-mail with the subject line "resign now." he alleged kasowitz had a history of alcohol abuse, which could rule out the security clearance needed to defend the president in matters related to the ongoing russian investigation. according to e-mails, kasowitz responded with four obscenity laced e-mails within 33 minutes. we will fought read those here. we've seen them, truss us. they are as explicit as you can imagine. he provided a phone number and demanded the man called him and stated, quote, i know where you live. i'm on you, reportedly the pan relied, thank you for the kind reply, he was so disturbed be i the e-mails, he then forwarded them to the fbi, a spokesman later released the following statement, mr. kasowitz said he intends to apologize to the writer of the e-mail referenced story while no excuse, the e-mail came at a end of a long day at 10:00 p.m. was fought

over. he goes on, i should not have responded in that inappropriate manner. he said, i intend to send him an e-mail stating just. that this is one of those times, one wishes to reverse the clock, of course i can't. donny, we will not read those e-mails but for an attorney for the president of the united states, pretty ugly staggering stuff. >> heidi and i were talking, we all received e-mails, he's a loose cannon, afternoon i don't respond zpli seen those. >> this is the president's chief counsel, that lack of cohesiveness and basic decorum is stunning. >> doesn't it seem to ratify was in the org knoll reporting, she acting a little erratically, responding to a random e-mail like that and tleptening. >> threatening. >> they were so aggressive and so profane, i almost didn't believe it could be him. i saw the statement, where he acknowledges it was him. he will apologize to the guy. >> up next, peter alexander is

standing by with the breaking news, there was a fifth person with russian ties in a meeting with donald trump jr. in 2016. keep it on "morning joe" for this breaking news. listen up, heart disease.) you too, unnecessary er visits. and hey, unmanaged depression, don't get too comfortable. we're talking to you, cost inefficiencies and data without insights. and fragmented care- stop getting in the way of patient recovery and pay attention. every single one of you is on our list. for those who won't rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. optum. how well gets done. to find smarter solutions. to offer more precise and less invasive treatment options than before.

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it is 8:30 on this morning from the east coast. we have learned donald trump jr. had a fifth person in the room. he is a lobbyist. he served in the military. he is suspected by u.s. officials as having ongoing ties to russian intelligence. he denies that, for now nbc news is not naming that lobbyist. also in the controversial meeting at trump tower was a lawyer who acknowledged to nbc news she was accompanied by at least one other man t. presence at that meeting of a russian american was suspected intelligence ties will be of great interest to special counsel bob mueller and the house panels investigating the russian interference campaign, representatives for kushner and manafort have declined to

comment. but the attorney retained by donald trump jr. is now speaking for that part of the story, we go to nbc news national correspondent peter alexander live at the white house. hey, peter. >> reporter: hey, womanly. let's give you a take outside the west wing in the course of the last really hour-and-a-half since the story the latest bombshell detonated as reported by nbc news, over the course of the last several days when the first reporting came out with this meeting, when you spoke to people here at the white house, they're used to incoming. they have been hearing so many different stories, attacking the president for the comments about james comey, all these different bombshells, routinely, this one felt different as you spoke to communication aides and others, they had a sense this was not good t. latest we are focused is one white house official this morning said sort of snarky towards me, in effect, you have been looking for something for nine months, you must feel good

you have something, but there is still nothing to this. to reenforce where you stand, throughout ethical watchdogs that talk about the concerns about mixing family and politics. >> that appears to be the central tension right now where the white house is generally in a position where it's trying to protect the principle. it appears the president may be trying to protect his own interest, including his son, donald trump jr., we spoke to the attorney for don jr., here's a part of what he told us if regards to this reporting. he said, it's very simple. the person was described as a friend of emin's and neighbor a friend of natalya. of course, shelves that kremlin-linked lawyer in that meeting, peter sost says he is a u.s. citizen, he told me specifically he was not working for the russian government and in fact laughed when i asked him that question.

he confirms for the purpose of security or otherwise, the names that were reviewed, but says trump's background, when asked about concerns, futerfas responded, i have absolutely no concerns about what he said in that meeting. to be clear, willie, we're hearing from them right now trying to get more details. we will keep you posted. back to you. >> i wanted to jump in here, even as you are reading that statement. we have an update from allen fuferfas. you read the statement. he now called us back at nbc news with a claire identification. he now says there was a third person in that room, in additio manafor the and the attorney and futerfas says he spoke with that other individual, the sixth person and not the soviet former soviet counterintelligence officer we have been talking about. so his description, we can't living it right now.

but his description of the person we just we heard about in that statement from donald trump jr.'s attorney may have been not from the former counterintelligence officer but of this alleged sixth person in the room. >> reporter: and to be clear, willie, we don't know whether or not there was an interpreter in the room at the time. so the potential exists that he pay have spoken to said interpreter and not to this individual that we have now reporting about on nbc news, just to emphasize this, prrm, donald trump jr. in he effort to put this to rest. spoke to sean hannity after this broke, in simple terms, he evidence, that is everything. trying to get rid of this. i asked the white house official about this wouldn't it have been simple to have told everything during the course of that interview or perhaps in that initial statement that came out on saturday, as nbc news reported. white house advisers helped craft on the way back from the g20 trip. this official should have put it out immediately, basically said, you know, this person is not

intimately aware of the details. he said, it's very likely he doesn't remember the details from way back then. i said wouldn't you go through all the records the same way aim told jared kushner's legal team went through e-mails and that's how they became aware of this e-mail chain, which led them to put this kremlin-linked lawyers name on the security clearance forms that jared kushner was filing? wouldn't don jr.'s team have done the same? >> basically the push back i got, this was happening so quickly more recently he may not have had the ability to do that. which is an insufficient answer especially when you consider the fact that this started on saturday, and it was several days before that interview took place on fox news, so even if that were a credible argue, they would have had approaching 100 hours to have tried to have done that work an get better information that puts us to rest. >> in that interview, sean

hannity gave donald trump jr. many opportunities, is this everything? donald trump jr. said, quote, this is anything, sean hannity said is there a chance you met with anybody else? he says, i believe it was possible, nobody directly related to this story. >> i was going to say, earlier in this week i was in a briefing with sarah huckaby sanders i said this drip, drip, trip, undermining this credibility of this administration. >> sanders says it's undermining the credibility of the media. at which point i told her that was a quote taken from trey gowdy the republican from south carolina. this is not us, it's on capitol hill, their frustration continues to grow. >> the president travels back from france, peter alexander, thank you very much. guys, let's stop and recap. heidi, we started with four people in the room, donald trump jr. had said it was a nothing meeting. this person said i put out the e-mails, said they might have something on russia and hillary

clinton. i thought this was opposite research. now we have a fifth person. now the recap the attorney alan futerfas who called back nbc news to clarify there was a third person in the room in addition to jared kushner, donald trump jr. and palm manafort in addition to the attorney and in addition to this fifth person that we've reported at nbc news, he now says he spoke, he believes, perhaps, to this sixth person in the room and that the way he characterized that person in the statement we read about 30 minutes ago as a friend of the attorney, may actually have been the sixth not the fifth person if that makes sense. >> anyone of those omissions this goes for the entire crew here making false statements and having to correct themselves, could be plausible in a vacuum. the problem is we are reaching a tipping point here of omissions on all of this i think it's just going to be really hard for them to have anybody to believe what they say, because even if this

lawyer is right about the specifics of how this went down on his statement, it doesn't take away from the fact that don jr. was just on fox and he was pointed blank asked, is that it? are there any other russians that you met with? he said no, not in a form am meeting. that was his opportunity right there to say, actually, there were two other russians in there, here's who they were. >> his quote, this is everything. joining us now the second ranking democrat in the u.s. senate, member of the judiciary committee, senator dick durbin of illinois. good to see you. we want to talk healthcare as republicans try to get something out of the senate. let me begin with this breaking news, new revelations of a meeting in june, 2016, at trump tower. we will learning of a fifth person in the room. few believe donald trump jr.'s attorney, perhaps a sixth person in the room coming to light in the last few minutes. what does this story tell you? >> bake rules in washington. it's not the crime. it's the coverup. secondly when you make a disclosure, make it complete.

we have a slow bleed, noerm information coming, out, discreditsing some of the reputations made by donald trump jr. and this meeting. >> senator, have you the nominee christopher ray, potential new fbi director before the senate subcommittee the other day answering questions. it appears he will get a chance right out of the box once he is approved by the united states senate. he's going no get a chance out of the box to prove his independence. >> well, i can tell you that this is an interesting hearing. historically, if you go back to the early, early days of j. edgar hoover, there was a fair about the independence and .er of the director of the fbi, maybe they got too much power. if you listen to christopher ray, it went in the opposition direction. will you be independence? can you say no to the president or the attorney general? i think he made a good representation of his position as a professional with a strong legal resume. >> heidi. >> senator, hi. first of all, i want to clarify

134g i said earlier, democrats absolutely did try to work with republicans on obamacare. you had hearings, amendments, i want to clarify that. going forward if republicans aren't able to pass a bill, let's say in the next week, what i'm hearing, i was wondering if you can confirm this. some republicans, i won't name names, some have already reached out to you or other democrats in the leadership to try and talk about a path forward. is that going on right now? behind the scenes? >> well, let me say initially the notion that mitch mcconnell yesterday finally disclosed the secret negotiations in a bill to affect one-sixth of the american economy and the health care of all americans is outrageous. this is a type of thing that should be carefully studied before we move forward on it. instead, it's being done mainly in secret. yes, there is a bipartisan appetite to tackle this issue. to put aside the tax cuts, the political rhetoric.

make our healthcare system stronger. there are republicans of good will holding back to see if the mcconnell effort is successful. if it's not, i hope we can move forward together. >> senator durbin, let's be honest here, where is the area for bipartisanship as you look at the latest version that came out yesterday of the senate proposal, what can you work with as a democrat in there? i mean, you're not going to stands for the roll b.c. back o medicaid that kicks some off the rolls, is there something in there to hold on to? >> i voted for the affordable care act. i think it was the right thing to do, reducing the number of uninsured in marc by half. there are changes that needs to be made. one of the horror stories we hear about, premiums in the roof, it's in the individual marketplace, that's where all of us agree we need to get together and find a way to make premiums affordable for the 6% of americans who shout for health insurance in that mark place.

the second issue, i hope we can agree on, most americans put as the number one priority, what to do to contain the costs of prescription drugs? that is driving the increase in premium comforts all across the united states. >> that's not what they're talking about in this bill. there is a major fundamental philosophic am differences you would have with almost everything put forward in this latest proposal. lefrts just let's just be real, will not get together with mitch mcconnell to repeal even a part of obamacare will you? >> no, i doubt we will with some of the members of the caucus, there are moderates in the caucus, sensible people that want to sit down and talk about this. when it comes to a republican plan devastates the medicaid program and takes 22 million americans off of health insurance, that's an unacceptable premise. we need to make this system we have stronger and more responsive. and i think there is a sentiment among democrats and republicans to do that. >> senator, we live in an age of

particular polarization, you work in an arena of polarization, is there anything the united states senate can learn from the fact yesterday the chicago cubs dealt with the chicago white sox in the big trade? >> listen that gives hope to the world that the sox and cubs can comb together. it's long overdue from the first half of the season. >> southsiders and north siders, peace breaks out. senator dick durbin, thank you for your time. we appreciate it. much more ahead on this story that keeps developing seemingly minute by minute. how many people were in that meeting in june 2016 with donald trump jr. at trump tower? nbc news reports there was another person besides the russian lawyer and there may have been a sixth person now in that meeting too, previously undisclosed. keep it on "morning joe" for this breaking news. whoooo.

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welcome back to "morning joe." if you are just waking up out rest a. very busy morning, nbc news reported there was a fifth person in the room of that june 2016 meeting at trump tower between donald trump jr. jared kushner and former campaign manager paul manafort and the russian attorney in that room. we now learned of a fifth person, a former soviet counter intelligence officer, we are not naming that person yet. >> that person denies having current contacts with russian intelligence. and now we are hearing from donald trump jr.'s attorney as he has replied now for a second time and responded to this story, getting back to us moments ago at nbc news saying he believes there was now another person in the room, bringing that total to six. that's the claim only from donald trump jr.'s attorney. we can report at nbc news, there were five people in the room. bottom line, rick, slowly we're getting the real story of what happened in the room. at least not what happened in the room, who was in the room.

none of this disclosed by donald trump jr. either when he put out the e-mails and talked about being transparent or when he did the long interview three nights ago hannity on fox news and was given every opportunity to describe what happened in the room, was asked is this everything, he said, quote, this is everything. >> and he said in retrospect he probably would have done things differently, but that again highlights the fact that he could have talked about, look, these are all the people. he put it all out there and then his father went on, so proud of my son, transparent, but the opacity of this administration on these issues particularly it's odd with russia. and i just want to say about this trip to france because i think this trip would have been a very good trip for france. and it's so interesting to see macron, who started a political movement from scratch and has a ma jortarian movement and actually has a majority party supporting him. he's so popular he has plit

capital to spend and then you have donald trump who started a political movement but it's not majortarian, but he's not popular in the united states and he's not popular in france, but it's a reminder france is our oldest ally that when americans are a force of good in the world and this is a lesson that i think donald trump could really learn by spending time in france, especially if you go to the normandy coast how they honor americans. >> and by the way, at that joint press conference with macron, donald trump spent some of his time defending donald trump jr. on this story. that of course before all the revelations we've brought this morning. we're going to stay on top of this breaking news. we've got more to it, still ahead amid continued claims of fake news, a new survey showing americans are hungry for trusted facts. but can americans agree on what they are? we'll explain that story ahead and continue with our breaking news. only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol®

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joining us now former ceo of microsoft and owner of the nba's los angeles clippers, steve ballmer, also founder of the group u.s. facts. in a new report titled state of the facts they asked the public if americans care about the truth. do they? >> absolutely. absolutely. the representative poll, democrats, republicans, urban, rural, and you take a look at it, people say they want facts, they don't want anecdotes. they think their political leaders should use real data to make decisions. they think that people need to have sort of a common view of the facts even if they have

different beliefs. and yet they find most of the facts they get biased. >> do you think that -- i mean everybody now is a newspaper person, a columnist, an opinion molder because of twitter and facebook. do you think twitter and facebook and other social media tools distort facts in people's minds? >> poll says, actually, that people believe the stuff they get off social media is by and large less accurate, more biased than the things they find elsewhere. and yet particularly amongst millennials they use it a lot more despite admitting that the information's less good. >> steve -- i'm sorry, go ahead. >> i mean, we have studys that show majority example of trump voters get their news off facebook. it seems like such a colossal challenge how do you counter that when you have these tech companies that have to be part of the solution. >> well, first of all, our poll data doesn't survey trump supporters but it does republicans. and one of the amazing things in

the poll is that republicans and democrats see these issues about the same way. their desire for facts, how they approach where they get facts, the desire to ground discussion in real facts, not anecdotes. when we talk about facts by and large we're talking about numbers because numbers are completely bipartisan, but nonetheless both parties agree on that point of view. >> steve, how do we get past what a fact is? in that coming from my background, consumers don't remember a day later where they got the information from. it's not like they have a brain that pockets, this came from facebook and this came from "the wall street journal." i don't know how you solve that rubik's cube. >> that's why at usa facts what we really do is a couple things. number one, we're really about numbers. numbers are not partisan, numbers are not interpretation, numbers are not speculation. and number two, we use only government numbers. i'm a big believer that we have competent people with high

integrity working at the bureau of labor statistics, at the center for medicare and medicaid services and businesses at least in this case the government needs to use the best information it has, the best numbers to really drive decision making. >> was there an overwhelming source of where people do trust the news? we see where they get the news, but was there a source that's the most trusted? where are people going to believe the news? >> there is a source that is most trusted and yet the percentage of people who trust it is low enough that it's probably not even worth highlighting. >> do you worry that as we progress skprks if you can call it progress, one or two years from now, twitter, facebook, all those tools, they're always changing, there are always additions to them. do you worry this will further disturb the people and facts gets in the middle of that? >> it can do, but people aren't really that confused. people understand that what they

get off of those media may not be good. the most important thing is to try to paint a picture -- that's why i like numbers. not everybody loves numbers, but at least numbers about history, what's happened, not speculation. right now you could say, hey, look, there's a forecast from omb about what will happen with the budget, there's a forecast from cbo, but if you look at the history, the history doesn't lie. it is the history. and it's important to look at things in that context. >> where can people access this material that you've gathered? >> yeah, we have a website usafacts.org. we have a narrative form of the numbers like a 10k report from business and then we provide all of the source data from the -- we use over 70 different government sources, 130 different government databases. >> how pervasive is the problem? is there anything about your numbers that tell us, for example, when certain things are said, like president trump's crowd size was bigger than obama's, which is demonstrably false, do you have any sense of

how pervasive the problem is that people believe that to be a fact? >> well, it wouldn't be a particular one that we have captured. >> but just broadly speaking. >> yeah, take the homicide rate. >> yeah. >> if you take a look at the number of homicides per 100,000 people, that has come down over the course of time in the united states. those are numbers, you can look them up, the government provides them. and there are cases like that that are important. >> great stuff. great stuff. interesting stuff. really interesting stuff. steve ballmer, thank you very much. that does it for us this morning. stephanie rule picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, michael. good morning. i'm stephanie rool with a lot to cover starting with an nbc news exclusive. someone else was in that don junior meeting, a man suspected of having ties to russian counterintelligence was in the room and we've got the breaking details as the president stands by his eldest son. >> i t